The Walking Dead: The Slavic Touch
by UnboundArtyom
Summary: A young Russian man called Artyom is trying to survive in the state of Georgia, he has to rely on the company of his friends and the constant fight against the the undead to stop him thinking about his checkered past, he starts to change over the course of the apocalypse...is it growth...or something else, will he even survive? He would love to know.


Everything was different before the walkers came, people were happy and the governments of the Earth were all happy to squabble over its dwindling resources, but that's all different now. Who am I? Oh…how rude of me not to introduce myself, I am Artyom Kharkov, yes I'm Russian but I only spent three years there before moving to the United States and Now I'm 20

I was training as a Nurse before the shit hit the fan and now I'm travelling with my three best friends, a childhood friend from Russia who came over to stay with me for a bit called Alexi Fletcher aged 21, his father was British and that's why he has a British last name. He is a brilliant marksman, having been taught by his father who fought in Iraq.

My second friend, Andrew Critchley is a complete tank and I don't think anyone could beat him in a fist fight, we attended the same college when he was doing film studies and he is also a dead eye with a shotgun, believe it or not. He is 22 years old.

My final companion is my life long best friend in the states, Olivia Lockett. I met her when she was being bullied for getting near perfect grades on her tests and I stopped the people bullying her; she is a very intellectual person and she has many skills, she can even jump start a car.

**Present Day**

I lean against the battered ledge of a windowsill in the derelict church we had decided to use for a shelter and to be honest it had served us well over the last three weeks, I was never a Christian or any religion for that matter, but I find myself praying more and more every day. Turns out the end of the world can do strange things to all of us, in the end. I hear shouting, which I immediately find odd. I clutch the M4 carbine that I had found at an abandoned Military camp closer to me.

All of a sudden the window shatters and I hear gunshots whizzing past my head at breath-taking speeds, with complete disregard for the rest of my body I throw myself to the ground so I don't get killed by the gunfire. I then hear Alexi, who stays in the church bell tower as a sniper-watchman over my walky-talky that I found.

"Artyom! We have bandits attacking our position, I've managed to kill two of them with my rifle but there's still five of them coming for you my friend!" He shouts with great concern and I was in a sense the leader of our group so it was also my job to co-ordinate defensive efforts.

"Don't worry Alexi, my friend just stay there and keep doing what you're doing, I will do the rest my brother!" I shout as I quickly pick myself up off the ground, groaning at the pain shooting in my elbows from the fall.

I see Andrew holding off the tide of enemies with a hunting rifle, he fires a round that pierces the neck of a bandit and causes lots of arterial spray to splat everywhere. Olivia/Livvy frowns as he took the shot and I know that she hates the fact that we have to kill to survive, I will have to talk to her about it later but for now we need to actually survive this encounter.

I raise my carbine and take aim at the bandit at the back who is carrying an assault weapon, I squeeze off a burst that fells him and I do a little celebration at the kill, but not much. Suddenly a hail of automatic weapon fire slams against our cover and I duck behind a concrete barrier to stop myself getting killed by the gunfire.

I see Livvy take a pot-shot with her handgun at our enemies, her shot hits one of the bandits straight in the nads, while he clutches his mangled manhood Andrew quickly finishes him off with a shot to the face from his rifle.

A massive crack rings out and another one of the Bandits falls leaving only one left, I know that It was Alexi as the shot hit the bandit on the top of his head and travelled down and out through his back, the final bandit, realising he had made a fatal mistake in attacking us, quickly tries to flee. He is cut down by simultaneous gunshots from all four of us and he then lies dead on the ground.

I quickly get on the walky-talky.

"Alexi, cover me, I'm going to see what sort of supplies they have on them and I will stash their guns on the back of the pickup." I say, knowing that possibly having some more guns may be a way to convince someone to let us in their group later on, if we make it that far.

I slowly stroll out of the confines of the church courtyard, I subtly make my way forwards, trying not to alert any nearby walkers and I quickly search through the backpack of the first Bandit. He only has a bottle of antibiotics and a bottle of water, I still pick them up and place them in my military backpack.

I then search the second Bandit who has a lot more in his bag, he has three bottles of water and a whole crate of beer, something that I, Alexi and Andrew would all greatly enjoy later on.

After a search of the remaining bandits I found a lot of water and beer, a few meds and nothing else really so I pick up the guns and head back to the church with them, everyone seemed amazed by my haul but in truth I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping to find some vodka or maybe some whiskey at least.

Everyone smiles at me, except Alexi because I can't see his face and I proceed to place all of the objects I had gained into the back of the footlocker, However first I took all the ammunition out of the weapons and placed them into the footlocker so that if we get jumped and someone takes the guns out of the back they won't immediately have ammunition to shoot at us with.

I walk over to Andrew and Livvy who both look at me happily.

"We're running low on medical supplies, I managed to get some off the dead guys but it won't be enough for the road, there's a pharmacy nearby and I think it may have something; we also need to find a gas station so we can fill the pickup so grab the jerry cans, we move in 5." I say and Andrew smiles.

"Yay, more opportunities to kill walkers." He says and I don't know if he was being sarcastic or not.

I grab my combat knife and handgun out of my military backpack and then before I know it, my friends are ready to head out with me and I quickly tell Alexi that we are going so we can leave.

We walk down a long, winding road. Not communicating with each other just in case we alert some walkers, we make it to the Pharmacy and I see a walker standing out the front. I bring up my fist as I'm at the front of the pack, they stop on my signal and I pull out my knife slowly.

I creep forward, step by step and finally I manage to creep behind the walker, I swing my knife so that the blade stabs right through the temple and into the brain, stopping it dead, literally.

"Target down, come on." I say and they follow behind me, I start to realise that since the start of the apocalypse I had changed immensely, I was a scared college kid with no confidence.

"Should we spread out and look separately?" Livvy asks and Andrew thinks for a moment.

"Yeah. That would give us the best chance to find everything here." Andrew says and I nod in agreement.

I separate from the group and quickly start looting the shelves trying to find something, however I couldn't find anything and from exhaustion I lean against the shelf. I hear a groan and I quickly swing round and stab my knife into the face of the walker that tried to sneak up on me.

"Guys, be careful, you know how silent the walkers can be when they try." I say and Andrew grunts in agreement, having known this far too well.

He was travelling with his father before coming across us, however his father died when a walker snuck up on both of them with no sound, Andrew ran and I can tell he's still feeling immense guilt and I will have to also talk to him at a later date, we all meet up at the front of the store.

"What's everyone got?" Livvy asks and I sigh at having found nothing.

"I got nothing." I say and Andrew groans, obviously stressed.

"I got a few bottles of antibiotics and a roll of bandages." Andrew says and I smile, thankful he actually found something but what Livvy found blows it all out of the water.

"I got four bottles of antibiotics, three rolls of bandages, two packs of antiseptic wipes and some plasters." She says, mine and Andrew's jaws metaphorically drop to the floor and I smile.

"Nice…" I mutter but I also see a gas station about five hundred meters away from us and I smile.

"What'd you see?" Andrew asks, noticing that I was staring at something.

"There's a gas station about five hundred meters away from here, would you guys be up for getting some gas from there, I mean the longer we stay here the longer we risk getting trapped by a horde of walkers." I explain and they both nod in agreement, so we all start walking stealthily to the station.

We get to the station and Livvy takes the jerry cans off of our hands and takes them next to the diesel pump, she will need us to cover her for a while until she is finished.

"I need you guys to keep any walkers off me until I get this done." She demands and Andrew merely grunts in response and what you have to know about Andrew is that's just one of the things he always does.

"Alright let's go my friend!" I shout and I see three walkers' dead ahead, Andrew is carrying a crowbar and I am using my combat knife as usual.

I run up to the three of them and I stab one of them through the eye, then the other one tries it attack me from behind but I push it back with a kick to the chest and it falls backwards onto the ground with a growl, Andrew smashes its brains in after finishing off his own walker and before I know it Livvy is finished with the filling up of the jerry cans and hands them to us quickly.

I notice that a large horde of walkers are approaching us and I count at least fifty of them which obviously makes me want to run back to the church and get the hell out of dodge.

"Hey guys, we have about fifty walkers approaching, run for it!" I yell.

My heart is pounding against my chest like an orchestra of war drums that haven't been played in years so the musicians are excited and my lungs are burning like someone covered them in gasoline and chucked a cigar on them, after about five minutes of this I see the church in the distance but I also see walkers and Alexi isn't in the bell tower any more so I am instantly worried.

I hear a gunshot and I then see him running from a group of 8 walkers and he jumps into the back of the pickup truck as Andrew is filling it and I quickly bounce into the driver's seat while Livvy gets in, next to me.

After Andrew finishes he also dives into the back and I quickly pull up the handbrake, I then slam my foot onto the accelerator and we blast out of the church, I take a hard left and then we get onto the road, my heart is still pounding so hard in my chest that I can hear it in my ears.

I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding and Livvy just looks at me, her blue eyes became even more noticeable in the low-light conditions, and she looked beautiful.

"Arty?" She says, calling me by old high school nickname.

"Yeah?" I respond and she looks at me while I have one eye on the road.

"Do you think we'll make it through this?" She asks and although I don't even know, I have to lie to her.

"Yeah." I say and I put my hand on her shoulder whilst one is still on the steering wheel.

We continued on down a long and lonesome road but at least we had each other…as cheesy as it sounds.

**AN: That was the first chapter and I kinda feel the like the quality dipped towards the end, please leave reviews, constructive criticism is lovely because it's every writer's dream on here to see a wall of text telling them what they did well and what they need to improve on, anyway thanks for reading:D**


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